Time for change: a world without time zones

I have never understood daylight saving time. To me it makes no sense to lose an hour of sleep to make better use of the daylight, especially when the amount of daylight that covers the earth does not change no matter the numeric value we assigned to it.

My disdain for daylight saving time becomes more apparent in the late fall and winter. I cannot stand how early it gets dark — a sunset at 4:53 p.m. irritates me because I feel tired so early in the evening. I spent the fall of junior year abroad in London. When we switched back from daylight saving time during my semester abroad, it got dark at like 3:30 p.m. What ensued were eight hours of non-stop yawning, and I hated it.

That same semester, during a trip to Greenwich, my hatred for daylight saving time evolved into a ponder as to why the earth is split into time zones. Using the same logic as before, the amount of sunlight that hits the earth’s surface in a given 24-hour rotation does not change, no matter the time numeral we assign to any given location. And after doing some research, thinking and watching a few YouTube videos, I came to the conclusion that we should do away with time zones and move on to a single 24-hour clock.

8 a.m. may be the perfect time for someone in Los Angeles to wake up, even though a New Yorker is already well into their work day. At midnight, most of Europe could be fast asleep, but folks in the Midwest can be sitting down for dinner. An eight-hour flight would take eight hours both in real time and clock time.

Before you start calling me crazy, this already happens. People on the west coast wake up when people on the east coast have already begun their day, it’s just that 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time is 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Your life, your actions and your sleep would not change at all, just the time numeral that you associate with a particular activity would change.

Using a 24-hour clock system, businesses could schedule a call between Paris and Indianapolis at 2 p.m. without having to remember if Indy is in the Central or Eastern Time Zone.

A world without time zones would be much simpler, just like a world without daylight saving time would be brighter at 5 p.m.

Time for change: a world without time zones was last modified: January 24th, 2019 by Aaron Alexander